The next version of my minimal Q3A distro is ready. This is a brand new version, I made it from scratch again.

The reason behind this is that however hard I tried, I could not make a stable version if I used Openarena as the starting point. It seems that the original system is hoplessly messed up in the OA release. So I decided to take the reverse route and start from the original release of Quake III Arena by id Software. I just exploded pak0.pak and tried to replace everything in the resulting folder tree by free stuff from Openarena, from our replacement texture pack 'z-gpl-q3a2oa-textures-v5' and from a previous source mod of mine (Q3M). Finally I have managed to replace almost everything. I have also compiled a new ioquake3 engine (version 1.35, revision 1438) for the distro.

The result is quite amazing (if I may say so). Except for a few glitches, the system works fine and the custom maps I tested run w/o problems. The ZIP archive containing the distro is only about 85 MB and it has everything you need for playing the game (including a test map in 'baseq3').

I am sorry, but the archive is password protected. This is experimental stuff and still contains copyrighted material of id Software. I don't want some jerk uploading it to public sites or making public servers based on this release. If you are genuinely interested and want to test the distro with the intent of contributing or fixing bugs, please, send me a private message via this forum and I will give you the password.

I have good news: the completely free, public release of the
Q3MIN minimal Quake III Arena distro is ready.

Here is the README from the package:

--------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a stripped down version of Quake III Arena originally
developed by id Software. The aim of this distro is to have a
small Q3A package that can be freely distributed, is easy to
download and supports game play on custom maps created for the
original Q3A game. One may say that this is what Openarena should
have been. In fact, it uses a lot of material from Openarena
(see below).

This package has been created by Speaker (aka Laszlo Menczel,
that's me). I may be contacted using the following e-mail address:

laszlo DOT menczel AT gmail DOT com.

Q3MIN is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
License (version 2). For more information see LICENSE.TXT.

The starting point of this package was the original game from id.
I unpacked the 'pak0.pk3' archive, then started to systematically
replace in the resulting folder tree all files using free material.

Notice to developers:
If you want to contribute stuff and take part in the further development of Q3MIN, please, contact me. I don't want to absolutely control what happens to this distro in the future (I am not the Fuhrer type) but some sort of coordination is really essential. I hope everybody can see this point.

2. lol @ your autoexec.cfg (walk left and right on mouse buttons ^^ )
3. when playing fullscreen the mouse is caught in the invisible box of the non-fullscreen window
4. you used MS comic sans font type

5. announcer sounds like duke nukem! yay!
6. runs in wine on my n00buntu out of the box
7. fps are superb here

_________________LOGIC, n.
The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. (Devil's dictionary)

Hello Laszlo, thanks for your nice effort. I'm sure with some dedication it will become a nice alternative to OA. I have 2 questions and a suggestion: Is it 100% compatible with the Q3 PointRelease 1.32 Protocol 68, or/and can you play on OA servers with this client? Did you make sure, to not use any by ID-software copyrighted material in it? And finally: If there are still soundfiles missing, do you want us (me) to look around on sources like www.freesound.org to find neat replacements? Greets

I have put together a DM/TDM map pack for the Q3MIN minimal Quake III Arena distro. I have tested and selected these maps personally. They appear to run w/o problems in Q3MIN. IMHO they are all good quality maps with decent game play. The map pack contains the following maps in PK3 format:

Please note that this map pack (unlike the basic game Q3MIN) is NOT distributed under the GNU General Public License. However, each map is freely distributable in unmodified form for non-commercial purposes. For details check the README files in the PK3 archives.

The maps are also available as separate packages from the LvL repository:

I am an addict (of FPS and programming). Anyway, this is just a humble start, the difficult part comes now.

Quote::

2. lol @ your autoexec.cfg (walk left and right on mouse buttons ^^ )

Well, it is a subjective thing. I don't find it funny. Anyway, I wanted to remove the file before posting but forgot it.

FYI: This comes originally from Doom (you see I am almost a fossil @ 61 years of age :/). I played Doom for a long time using the keyboard only. It was convenient for me to use the keys Z, X, C and SPACE for strafe left, fire, strafe right and jump (for left hand) and the arrow keys for forward/backward and turning (right hand). I became really proficient with this setup. Years later Quake came around with mouse control. I tried to transform my Doom setup for the mouse, so I decided to use left/middle/right instead of Z,X and C (still with the left hand, it was not easy to learn) and the numeric keypad for the arrows and weapon selection (right hand). And I have kept this setup ever since (Heretic, Hexen, Quake2, Unreal Torunament 99/2003, Quake3).

Quote::

3. when playing fullscreen the mouse is caught in the invisible box of the non-fullscreen window

I am not sure if it is specific to Q3MIN. I will check it.

Quote::

4. you used MS comic sans font type

So what? Are we the slaves of common prejudice? I think it is not too bad (even if a bit overused).

Quote::

5. announcer sounds like duke nukem! yay!

Chiquita's department (supplied the sounds).

Quote::

6. runs in wine on my n00buntu out of the box

Well, that's relief for me. I have no experience in compiling native Linux clients. One thing less to do.

Quote::

7. fps are superb here

I guess I can't claim that it is because of my work. However, I noticed that the game starts much faster than original OA.

Hello Laszlo, thanks for your nice effort. I'm sure with some dedication it will become a nice alternative to OA.

I hope that it will attract all the frustrated would-be developers of OA and we can make a great thing out of it.

Quote::

Is it 100% compatible with the Q3 PointRelease 1.32 Protocol 68, or/and can you play on OA servers with this client?

I guess it should be compatible with the point release (it uses protocol 68 and a standard engine). The compatibility of PK3s is a different matter, it should be tested. And of course if the server runs an ID map (q3dmXXX) you are out of luck.

It is definitely not compatible with the current release of OA right now because of the different protocol numbers. Also all the OA maps used on their servers are missing from Q3MIN. I don't intend to change this (if you want to play on an OA server then get their client).

Quote::

Did you make sure, to not use any by ID-software copyrighted material in it?

Yes, as much as humanly possible. All artwork is original (either OA or our texture pack). I checked and re-checked several times (I manipulated the date/time stamps of the files to distinguish between old and new stuff).

Quote::

And finally: If there are still soundfiles missing, do you want us (me) to look around on sources like www.freesound.org to find neat replacements?

Yes, please! It would be great help. Maybe consult with chiquita (our sound guru :))

Now that a starter package has been made, it is time to summarize what kind of changes/enhancements we would like to add to the system. I have scanned again the posts in this topic and found the following suggestions (this is a partial list w/o mentioning the proposers):

- new menu
- sane default options
- in-game documentation
- brightskins or better pm-skins (possibly as default)
- better sounds and announcer voices
- serverdemo recording
- more balanced weapons (especially LG and RG revision)
- nailgun, chaingun, proximity mine and bfg should be removed
- an anticheat system something like NoGhost
- in-game documentation + demos
- centralised repository to download updates
- new maps, maps with a closed license
- centralised statistics handling (?)
- include Jocke's launcher (or something similar)
- automatic log files of games / in-game chat / game stats readable
by other programs, to create for example a html game statistic on
the basis of the logs in your game folder
- automatic screenshots of scores
- noghost stuff (anti-camping, etc.)
- better demo playback
- custom HUD
- MD5 model ported to engine
- build, test and distribute WORKING and completely configured
packages of the map editor (the binary is relatively small,
actually)
- something like GTV, would be cool to have voice commentation
feature with it, maybe VoIP can be useful at least for that
- setup should be splitted (normal and pro versions)
- improved item management system
- changed max amount of ammo for weapons
- /drop command
- some innovations in physics e.g. walljump, performed by regular
jump key
- webpage where you can follow the progress of the development
- autoupdate of game from a trusted central repository
- a PHP-web-based adiministration interface

The list is already rather substantial and I am sure it will (almost exponentially) grow out of practical limits soon. But that should not keep you from suggesting anything (well, anything related to the game ) that you think could improve the game experience.

I also wish to add a couple of things. These are already implemented (coded) in my previous sorce mod Q3M, so it would be a trivial thing to port them to ioq3. They are described here:

I would also like to add a built-in map rotation system (not like the clumsy 'vstr'-based system we use now). This would allow specification of game mode and bot number/skill/names for each individual map via a simple ASCII config file.

Please, add your suggestions, comments and criticism. I think that we should now have a period of let's say one week to collect all the ideas, then we can have a discussion about what to implement and set the priorities of different modifications. And most importantly: agree on who is going to do what.

Speaker

_________________0

Last edited by Speaker on Mon Jul 27, 2009 4:22 pm; edited 2 times in total

It is still missing alot of the redone sounds and the textures (especially the rainbow portal) :D

The sounds aren't as simple as they seem simply to add to the game. They need to match levels and when items are close together they need to be short (rather than the clickety click sounds that OA used) They also override sounds which causes missing sounds. I can test these out with joki and if he has any suggestions I can put them through the batch processor which I have been using as a final master to equalise them perfectly.

So what? Are we the slaves of common prejudice? I think it is not too bad (even if a bit overused).

I agree with popejo. It's BAD Anyway, with the assistance of good players I hope this will be a community project and instead of having food shoved down our mouths there can be some kind of agreement on the content.

Another thing I did notice is the ch's are still double the size.. but well done Speaker in putting this together. It's a good start.

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